“They’d still love you,” she whispered. “Just like I do.”
His chest squeezed so hard he thought he’d break in half.
Words clawed at his throat, fighting to be free, but he wouldn’t tarnish his declaration of love to her with this. Not when he still had words to confess. He forced them out, jagged, splintered. “The man I saw outside your flat, the one working with Oliver, he was the one. The one who…” He couldn’t say the word. Not again.
Clara’s whole body stilled.
“That’s why I took you,” he rasped, shame scorching him. “I couldn’t risk him touching you. I couldn’t let it happen to you. Not you.”
Her tears fell hot onto his skin as she cradled his face between both hands. “Oh, Jonas. No.” Her voice broke. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.” She kissed his temple, his cheek, anywhere she could reach. “But you listen to me, you arenotless. Youaremore. Because you survived. Because you kept going, even when everything in you was broken. That doesn’t make you weak. That makes you stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.”
He swallowed hard, her words striking deep. His arms tightened around her, clutching her like a lifeline, as if letting go would send him back into that hut.
But he wasn’t there. Not anymore. He was here. With her.
And for the first time, maybe ever, Jonas Mason dared to believe he could be more than the sum of his scars.
Chapter 31
Clara wokebefore the lights in the corridor timed themselves brighter, before the uninterrupted hum of the compound felt like company rather than a hush. The sheets were warm and tumbled, still faintly scented with soap and something that was simply Jonas. She lay there a moment with her palms pressed to her sternum, as if she could keep last night from spilling out and thinning into the ordinary. The room held the soft quietness of early morning, the radiator ticking once, the clock on her side table a small, patient sound.
She rose because stillness never really soothed her, not when her head was full. Shower, towel dry, hair twisted into a clip, moisturiser smoothed over skin that still remembered the slide of his hands. She brewed tea the way she liked it, leaves steeped a breath longer than recommended, a ribbon of milk, one sugar. She held the mug under her chin and let the steam fog her vision. When she sipped, the heat pooled low in her chest and tugged up everything she’d been pushing down since Jonas had said the wordsthe night I was kidnapped.
Grief. Not for herself, not this time, but for the man he’d been and the man who’d carried that silence for too long. Ragetoo, clean and cold. Admiration that ached, because she had seen men bluster and posture their way through lesser things, and he’d simply told her, his voice shredded and steadying and then stayed in her arms.
She dialled Lena on the secure handset because there was only so much she could hold alone. The line clicked twice, then a yawn down the wire.
“You’re a monster,” Lena said, and Clara smiled despite herself. “It’s barely civilised o’clock.”
“It’s half eight.”
“That’s practically dawn for artists,” Lena said, more awake already. “How is the bunker life? Are they feeding you or have you been reduced to gnawing on network cables with your mysterious giant shadow?”
Clara laughed, the sound coming out in a soft burst she had not planned. “He’s not a giant shadow.”
“Please. The man looms. He loomed on the pavement, he loomed in a museum, he probably looms in his sleep. I’m pro-loom, for the record.”
“He makes very good tea, and don’t make me regret telling you about the museum encounter,” Clara said with a smile, instantly knowing she’d said the wrong thing.
She heard Lena’s grin come through her voice over the line. “Oh no. He makes tea. You’re lost.”
Clara wrapped the phone cord around her finger and stared at the steam rising from her mug. “He told me something last night. Something… enormous.”
Lena was quiet in the quick way she had of throwing on seriousness like a coat. “All right. Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is he?”
Clara swallowed. “He’s trying. He’s tried for so long, I think he forgot what it felt like to be held.”
A beat, then a soft exhale. “Then hold him. And let him hold you back, if he can. Don’t be afraid of his scars. They mean he outlived the fire.”
Clara pressed her knuckle to her lip. “You make it sound easy.”
“It isn’t. But itissimple,” Lena said, brisk again, because she knew when Clara needed a nudge and when she needed a joke. “Also, tell him if he ever hurts you, I’ll steal all his passwords, and I don’t even know how.”
Clara laughed properly then, the tightness in her chest loosening. “I’ll pass that on.”
